one for the record....

MALAYSIA HOME MINISTER: NON-MALAYS ARE MORE OKAY WITH BEING RAPED

According to him, statutory rape offends Malay sensibilities more than it does the sensibilities of other Malaysians, making it more likely for the former to report the crime.

and bringing oversimplification and finger-pointing to new levels: 

He blamed Internet pornography, peer influence and uncontrolled libido for the high incidence of statutory rape.

GUN SHOWS IN AMERICA

you could buy a gun from private sellers without a background check....now there's a big loophole!!!
http://www.upworthy.com/a-guy-walked-into-a-convention-with-a-hidden-camera-what-he-captured-was-beyond-absurd?c=ufb2

death penalty and civil society

Iran has executed a woman who killed a man she said was trying to sexually abuse her: http://bbc.in/1rxP7kc

Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was hanged in a Tehran prison despite an international campaign urging a reprieve.

twitter works for police

A pair of sharp-eyed Philadelphia Twitter users spearheaded an online manhunt for suspects in a hate crime until police tracked the perpetrators down.

Both Greg Bennett and user @FanSince09 sprang into action after Philadelphia Police released surveillance video of a dozen men beating up a gay couple last week in Center City.

even in squeaky clean singapore

An independent study of sex trafficking victims has shed some light on the murky world of the unregulated sex trade here.
It found that victims from the Philippines were lured to Singapore by friends and acquaintances on the pretext of jobs such as waitressing and hostessing, before ending up in nightclubs.
Some Indonesian victims, meanwhile, were already prostitutes in Batam before coming here to ply their trade on the streets and budget hotels, under the watchful eyes of local pimps.
The 144-page study, released last week, was conducted by Singapore-based academic Sallie Yea, an assistant professor of geography at the National Institute of Education, who interviewed 87 women tricked into coming to Singapore.

Background story

Slightly more sex trafficking reports last year
THE police received 53 sex trafficking reports last year, up slightly from 52 in 2012 and 43 in 2011.
While the rest are still under investigation, five have been dealt with in court.
One of them involved a 17-year-old from China, who was beaten and drugged before being brought here last May to work as a prostitute.
The minor was made to serve 150 clients in 15 days.
Her pimp from China, 37-year-old Tang Huisheng, was sentenced to six years in jail last October.

pain and forgiveness

TORTURED BY THE JAPANESE IN WW2, FORMER POW MET HIS TORMENTOR AGAIN 50 YEARS LATER

Post date: 

6 Jan 2014 - 7:57am

Eric Lomax, who died just a year ago aged 93, was starved, viciously beaten and tortured as a prisoner of the Japanese during WW2.  Fifty years later, he was to meet his chief tormentor again.
An account of his story published in the Reader’s Digest in 1994 generated such interest that, a year later, he published his own memoir called The Railway Man.
Eric Lomax was born in Edinburgh on 30 May 1919.  Just before the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939, aged 19, he joined the Royal Corps of Signals.  Commissioned in December 1940, he was posted to Malaya in 1941, but his unit was soon in full retreat to Singapore, where he was captured by the Japanese in February 1942.  With thousands of his fellow prisoners, he undertook a forced march to Changi Prison, and was then transported 1,200 miles to Kanchanaburi, Thailand, and forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway.
By day, the prisoners laboured in temperatures exceeding 38°C.  By night, they slept on wooden planks in dismal bamboo huts.  Nearly all the men were depleted from malnutrition and disease, and they were dying by the score.
To obtain war news, Lomax and a few other prisoners had secretly built a radio receiver from scrap materials they collected.  They concealed it in a coffee tin and huddled around it at night.  Lomax also drew a map of the area around the railway to aid in possible escape attempts, gaining information from truck drivers, new prisoners, and Japanese maps whenever he had access to camp offices.  He hid his map in the latrine.  The radio went undetected for a few months until one morning when the Japanese conducted a surprise search of the huts.  It was discovered under the bunk of another prisoner, whose immediate punishment was to swing a 270lb sledgehammer onto a block of wood for hours at a time.
A few weeks later, Lomax and 4 of his radio ‘co-conspirators’ were ordered to gather their belongings to move to another camp in Kanchanaburi.  Lomax ducked into the latrine and grabbed the map.  When they arrived at the new camp, the prisoners were thrown to the ground and their meagre possessions ransacked.  A guard found Lomax’s map and they were ordered to stand at attention all day in the scorching sun, without food or water.  Finally, that night, one of the prisoners was ordered to raise his arms above his head. A soldier swung the wooden handle of a pickaxe down across the man’s back, knocking him to the ground. Other guards joined in, beating and kicking the man until he appeared lifeless. Another prisoner was similarly beaten.  Lomax was next.  Within seconds he was slammed to the ground, and his mouth filled with blood.  He felt boot heels on the back of his head, crunching his face into the gravel.  He heard the crack of his own bones.  The beating went on until he lost consciousness.
When Lomax woke the next morning, his body was numb.  The other four men were sprawled nearby, groaning.  They lay under the fierce sun for two days before fellow POWs were sent to carry them to the camp hospital, where a Dutch doctor treated them as best he could.  Lomax was in the worst condition.  His nose, arms, right hip and several ribs were broken. Bruises covered his body. “You men suffered the most horrendous beatings I have ever witnessed,” the doctor said. “I counted 900 blows over six hours.”
Two weeks after the beatings, with his arms encased in splints and bandages, Lomax was driven to the Japanese military-police headquarters in Kanchanaburi.  There, he was locked in a 5ft cage that soon became full of red ants, mosquitoes and his own filth.
Eventually, he was brought before a shaven-headed NCO, “his face full of violence” and an “almost delicate” interpreter, Takashi Nagase, for interrogation.  In fluent English, Nagase accused Lomax of ‘anti-Japanese activities’ and stated that he would be ‘killed shortly’.  Lomax remembered it as, “a flat neutral piece of information … I had just been sentenced to death by a man my own age who seemed completely indifferent to my fate. I had no reason to doubt him.”
Nagase said to Lomax, “We know you were involved in building and operating the radio – your friends confessed to your part in it. Now tell us: Who else was involved?”  Lomax refused to tell them.  They wanted to know why Lomax had secret map of the area around the railway, and where he had got the information to draw it.  Unsurprisingly, his explanation that he was a railway enthusiast who had simply mapped it for pleasure on his own devices did not convince them.
The interrogation went on for hours, then days.  Nagase was always on hand as interpreter.  Eventually the military policemen began to slap Lomax, and then deliver repeated blows to his face as his silence continued.  When the policemen stalked out of the room momentarily, Nagase whispered to Lomax, “If you confess, they’ll stop beating you.”  But Lomax remained defiant.
On the 5th day of interrogation, Lomax was accused of being a spy – a crime punishable by death.  When Nagase told him he had to sign a confession, Lomax again refused.  Lomax was dragged out to the banks of the River Kwai and was laid on his back on a bench.  One of his broken arms was pulled behind his back, the other across his chest, and he was tied down. He was in agony.
“Are you ready to talk?” Nagase asked.  Lomax shook his head.
A towel was put over his mouth and nose. Then one of the guards picked up a long rubber hose, turned a faucet on full force, and directed the stream onto the towel. The water soaked through, blocking Lomax’s mouth and nose.  He gagged and frantically gasped for breath as water filled his throat.  His stomach began to swell.  He was drowning on dry land.  When the towel was finally removed and Lomax had recovered from his delirium, he still refused to confess and name his confederates.  The water torture began once more.  At times, Lomax ended up crying out for his mother, unaware that she had died soon after his capture.
The interrogation and torture finally stopped after more than a week.  The Japanese had brought Lomax as close to death as possible, yet he showed no signs of giving in.  Nagase informed Lomax that he was being transferred out of the camp.  Expressing empathy with the prisoner, Nagase said, “Keep your chin up.”
It had no effect on Lomax, who was consumed with hatred for Nagase.  In Lomax’s mind, Nagase personified all the atrocities committed by the Japanese.  His was the voice that Lomax heard hour after hour, when the torture began and ended.  During the interrogations, Lomax memorised every feature of Nagase’s face: the dark eyes, the small nose, the broad forehead.  He wanted to remember him, and someday find him and make him pay.

Eric Lomax and Nagase Takashi during WW2

Lomax was tried in a court in Bangkok for his ‘crimes’ and sentenced him to 5 years’ hard labour.  He was sent to a disease-ridden prison in Singapore and twice feigned injury in order to be sent to hospital.  He stayed there until the war ended, when his suffering appeared to be over.
When Lomax finally returned home to Britain, he learned that his mother had died three years before, and his father had remarried. He was relieved to find, however, that his fiancée had waited for him.  They married three weeks after his arrival, and Lomax’s life seemed to settle into a comfortable routine.  He retired from the army in 1948, worked abroad for some years and later got a job teaching personnel management at Strathelyde University in Glasgow. He also became the father of two girls.
But his wartime past wouldn’t leave him.  The fractured bones in his right arm and wrist never set properly, making it painful for him to write.  He also had frequent nightmares in which he would see Nagase’s face and hear his voice.  He refused to talk about the war, reasoning that nobody would understand.  He would lose his temper over trivial matters, such as bureaucratic requests for personal information.  When his wife asked him what was wrong, Lomax remained tight-lipped and sullen. Finally the marriage ended.
In 1983, at the age of 64, Lomax married Patricia Wallace, a 46-year-old nurse.  Patti understood that her husband’s angry outbursts were related to his wartime experiences and assumed things would get better with time.  Unfortunately, matters grew worse and the flashbacks continued.  He even once refused to take a seat in a restaurant because a Japanese couple was eating nearby.  At his wife’s urging, Lomax contacted the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and began treatments with a psychiatrist, talking about his experiences as a POW.  But, he remained darkly obsessed with his torturers, especially the interpreter.  He located and wrote other British survivors of Kanchanaburi, requesting information about the camp officials.  Nothing came of his efforts.  Then, in October 1989, a friend gave Lomax a newspaper clipping about the publication of Crosses and Tigers, a book by Takashi Nagase.
To Lomax’s amazement, the article explained how, “the author has flashbacks of the Japanese military police in Kanchanaburi torturing a POW accused of possessing a map.  One of their methods was to pour large amounts of water down his throat.”  The article spoke of Nagase’s remorse over Japanese atrocities and his public acts of atonement to the victims.
Lomax got a copy of Nagase’s book and found it very painful to read, especially the details of his interrogation and torture.  His wife suggested that he write to Nagase.  Lomax refused, but gave her grudging permission to send a letter on her own.
“I have just finished reading your book,” Patti wrote. “My husband is the man you describe being tortured so terribly”. She went on to say he had lived with many unanswered questions all these years and ended with a request: “if you are willing, perhaps you would correspond with my husband?”
Patti Lomax was moved to tears by Nagase’s reply. “I have suffered tremendous guilt all these years,” he wrote.  “I have often prayed I would meet your husband again and be able to seek forgiveness for what I assisted in.”
Convinced of Nagase’s sincerity, Patti suggested to her husband that he should write himself.  While Lomax was extremely reluctant to contact the very object of his hatred, Patti gently suggested, “Maybe it’s time to step out of the darkness.”
Eventually Lomax agreed that Nagase’s remorse must he genuine and replied with a note, “Perhaps a meeting would be good for us.  They agreed to meet at the World War 2 museum in Kanchanaburi on 26 March 1993 – almost 50 years after their first encounter.
Lomax travelled to the Far East with Patti.  On the day of the meeting, he nervously paced about the museum’s terrace.  Then he saw a slight Japanese man walking towards him. The face was much older, but still instantly recognisable.  The former interpreter identified Lomax just as quickly.  When Nagase reached Lomax, he bowed deeply. “I am so very sorry,” he said softly. “I would like…” His voice cracked, and he began to cry.  On instinct, Lomax put out his hand, and Nagase clasped it tightly.  They sat together in silence on a nearby bench. Finally Lomax spoke, “Do you remember what you told me when we last met?”
“No, I don’t,” Nagase replied.
“You said, ‘Keep your chin up.” Lomax paused, then smiled.
The tension began to vanish.  Over the next three days, the men talked about their lives since the war.  Their rapport grew easier with time.
The day before they were to part, the two men sat across from each other in silence. Then Lomax handed Nagase a letter he had written the night before. “I think you’d like to have this,” he said.
Nagase unfolded the page and read the words, “Although I can’t forget the ill treatment at Kanchanaburi, taking into account your change of heart, your apologies, the work you are doing, please accept my total forgiveness.”
Nagase looked up and grasped Lomax’s hand.  Both men had tears in their eyes.
“I’ve learned that hate is a useless battle,” Lomax said, “and it has to end sometime.”
The two men went on to become firm friends, and their remarkable story of reconciliation has been turned into a film, starring Colin Firth as Eric Lomax, with Nicole Kidman playing his wife.  Sadly, Mr Lomax will not now see the film’s release next year.

the power of Art to sustain hope

http://vimeo.com/78199925

Shine Global is dedicated to ending the exploitation & abuse of children worldwide through the production of films and other media that raise awareness, promote action, and inspire change.

Since its founding in 2005 as a non-profit film production company, Shine Global has given voice to some of the world’s most at-risk children, shared their stories, inspired millions of viewers, and won more than 30 major film awards including an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short, an Academy Award® nomination for Best Documentary, Best Director Documentary at Sundance, and two Emmy Awards®.
Shine Global’s upcoming films include the 3D documentary 1 Way Up about two teens who overcome poverty and discrimination to reach the world championships for BMX bike racing and Selling Our Daughters about the complex issue of child trafficking in Thailand.
Shine Global is a 501(c)(3) non-profit film production company. All contributions to Shine are used to produce films and are tax deductible. Net profits are returned to the children documented through local non-governmental agencies.

powerful messages... save the children of this world

The first image refers to pedophilia in the Vatican. Second child sexual abuse in tourism in Thailand, and the third refers to the war in Syria. The fourth image refers to the trafficking of organs on the black market, where most of the victims are children from poor countries; fifth refers to weapons free in the U.S.. And finally, the sixth image refers to obesity, blam...ing the big fast food companies.
The new series produced by Cuban artist Erik Ravelo was titled as "The untouchables", are photographs of children crucified for his supposed oppressors, each for a different reason and a clear message, seeks to reaffirm the right of children to be protected and report abuse suffered by them especially in countries such as Brazil, Syria, Thailand, United States and Japan"

6 hours ago

WELL, IF YOU WANT TO COMMIT A CRIME, DO IT NORWAY

BASTOY PRISON, NORWAY

Justice Center Leoben, Austria




Pondok Bambu Prison, Indonesia
In Indonesia, if you have the big bucks, you’re not going to spend time in the clinker, you’re going to spend time in hotel with pumped up security! This white collar prison looks more like a 4 star resort than a place in which to pay your debt to society. This prison shows how corrupt the legal system in Indonesia can be. The rooms are decked out with designer furniture, karaoke machines, fridges, bathrooms, and personal climate controlled air condition.

CRIME AND DRUGS

Mexico's struggle with its powerful drug cartels took a grisly turn in 2010. Troubled border cities were subsumed in violence as the country's drug kingpins warred over turf. All the while, security forces were either outgunned or cowed — or sometimes even in cahoots with the cartels.

technology and crime

singapore - THE roll-out of surveillance cameras in local neighbourhoods
is expected to be completed in 2016

to detect crime? prevent crime? 

death penalty revised

The death penalty will be changed, allowing judges discretion to impose life imprisonment in certain specific instances of drug trafficking and murder
.
For drug trafficking, two 'specific, tightly-defined' conditions must both be met, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said in Parliament on Monday.

First, the person must have only played the role of a courier, and not have been involved in any other activity related to drug supply or distribution. Second, the trafficker must also have co-operated with anti-narcotics authorities in a 'substantive' way, or has a mental disability that 'substantially impairs' his appreciation of the gravity of the act.

The death penalty will remain in most circumstances, such as for drug kingpins and distributors, said DPM Teo, who is also Home Affairs Minister.

for gamers....good news

Britain is launching a new spy recruitment drive
aimed at youngsters with no university degree
but with a grasp of social media and gaming
the aim - to train the next generation of code breakers and
computer scientists to protect the country against cyber threats

TECH AND CRIME

An AMBER Alert or a Child Abduction Emergency (SAME code: CAE) is a child abduction alert bulletin in several countries throughout the world, issued upon the suspected abduction of a child, since 1996. AMBER is officially a backronym for "America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response" but was originally named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old child who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996. Alternate alert names are used in Georgia, where it is called "Levi's Call"[1] (named after Levi Frady); Hawaii, where it is called a "Maile Amber Alert"[2] (named after Maile Gilbert); and Arkansas, where it is called a "Morgan Nick Amber Alert"[3] (in memory of Morgan Chauntel Nick). Frady, Gilbert and Nick were all children who went missing in those U.S. states.


AMBER Alerts are distributed via commercial radio stations, internet radio, satellite radio, television stations, and cable TV by the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio[4][5] (where they are termed "Child Abduction Emergency" or "Amber Alerts"). The alerts are also issued via e-mail, electronic traffic-condition signs, the LED billboards which are located outside of newer Walgreens locations,[6] along with the LED/LCD signs of billboard companies such as Clear Channel Outdoor, CBS Outdoor and Lamar,[7] or through wireless device SMS text messages.



IS IT DIFFICULT TO COPE WITH CRIME IN A HIGH TECH WORLD?   YES IT IS...NATURE OF CRIME...MORE IN NUMBERS; SOPHISTICATION; ANONYMITY   BUT TECH HAS ALSO HELPED US IN CRIME PREVENTION; DETECTION TOO AS THE ABOVE EG SHOWS US

role of media; human rights violations; prisons

• 2004, human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, reports of rape, sodomy, and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (also known as Baghdad Correctional Facility) came to public attention. 
• These acts were committed by military police personnel of the United States Army

Lynndie England holding a leash attached to a prisoner, known to the guards as "Gus", who is lying on the floor

This image of a prisoner being tortured has become internationally famous, eventually making it onto the cover of The Economist 

 

 

 

 

•  In 2004, articles describing the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel appearing to abuse prisoners, came to public attention, when a 60 Minutes II news report 
• article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine reported the story
• removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty
• and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, 

compare this with halden

inexcuseable; justice was swift and necessary...many were jailed for these offences...would we expect anything but harsh punishment for such abuses....even if they were abusing criminals

restorative justice is an option

Restorative justice (also sometimes called reparative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing the offender. Victims take an active role in the process, while offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm they've done—by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service" Restorative justice involves both victim and offender and focuses on their personal needs. In addition, it provides help for the offender in order to avoid future offences. It is based on a theory of justice that considers crime and wrongdoing to be an offence against an individual or community, rather than the state. Restorative justice that fosters dialogue between victim and offender shows the highest rates of victim satisfaction and offender accountability


 <sup>this will be a good option if
1 the victim is willing
2 the criminal is remorseful
3 the crime involves money, stolen property

It would, however, be unwise to expect a rape victim to accede to a request to see the rapist....

its success will depend on
1 the type of crime
2 the state of mind of the victim
3 the social setting...the culture of the society...religious values that center on forgiveness...or is revenge the order of the day
4 whether such a solution is doggedly pursued by the state/authorities...or merely paid lip service
5 the nature of the criminal
6 How the entire process is carried out</sup>

prison need not be that bad

Norway’s Halden Prison: A Humane Approach Works for Rehabilitation

•  decrease in repeat criminal behavior as illustrated in its 20% recidivism rate 2 years after release.

• people are not angry and not hostile
• fewer fights
• positive relationships between the imprisoned people and prison officers
• They each have a small cell that is nicely furnished and includes small refrigerators & a bathroom.
• There is also a special “guest house” at Halden where people with families and younger children can request to spend the night. 
• This “carrot” for good behavior apparently helps

MASS SHOOTING: ONE EG MANY QUESTIONS

Up to 12 people are confirmed dead after a man hurled a tear gas bomb and then opened fire during a midnight screening of Dark Knight Rises, near Denver, Colorado.


A 24-year-old man - named by US media as James Holmes - was arrested in a car park nearby and is in custody. He was reportedly armed with a rifle and two handguns and told police he had explosives at his home, which has been surrounded by a SWAT team.



1 IS THE MEDIA THE CAUSE OF CRIME?   BASED ON THIS EG...HOLMES OPENED FIRE DURING A FIGHT SCENE; HE SEEMS TO BE EMULATING THE EVIL AND CRIMINAL WAYS OF JOKER IN THE MOVIE...   SOME WOULD POINT FINGERS AT THE MEDIA, BUT WE MUST AVOID SUCH HASTY CONCLUSIONS. IT IS APPARENT FROM FURTHER INVESTIGATION THAT THE YOUTH WAS 1) MENTALLY DISTURBED 2)PROBABLY MARGINALISED AND LONELY... IF ANYTHING, THE MEDIA/MOVIE COULD HAVE TRIGGERED AN ALREADY EXISTING AND POTENT DETRUCTIVE/CRIMINAL TENDENCY   2 ARE HARSH PUNISHMENTS EFFECTIVE?   IN THIS CASE, PRACTICALLY NOBODY WILL SAY WE SHOULD NOT METE OUT HARSH PUNISHMENTS...   1 harsh punishments are necessary - to keep the streets safe from a killer who is likely to do it again 2 harsh punishments are effective because

• they send out a clear message that such behaviour will not be tolerated
• the death penalty would be an effective deterrent
• it gives some degree of closure to the victim's family

HARSH PUNISHMENT A MUST IN THESE CASES?

Jessica Lunsford


Charming Florida child is abducted from her home by drugged out repeat sex offender John Couey who stashes her in his sister's nearby trailer and rapes her repeatedly. When investigators come looking, he panics and buries her alive.

Amber Hagerman

She was the abducted and murder child whose tragic story prompted the establishment of the Amber Alert system. She was riding her bike in broad daylight when a man stopped and threw her screaming into his truck.

  WHETHER IT IS THE DEATH PENALTY OR LIFE IMPRISONMENT - ANY PARENT WOULD INSIST THAT NOTHING SHORT OF HARSH PUNISHMENT WOUD DO...IF WE WANT OUR CHILDREN TO FEEL SAFE IN THE STREETS

death penalty